


neon bruises

by sanvitheartificer



Series: forgiveness, in seven parts [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Barry and lup being v v in love, Canon-Compliant, Codependence, Cooking, Dissociation, F/M, Forgiveness, Found Family, Gen, Lich Lup, Post-Canon, Spectral cuddling, but both of those things pretty brief mentions, taako and lup not knowing how to talk anymore, talking about problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanvitheartificer/pseuds/sanvitheartificer
Summary: Lup's had lots of things taken from her. She's not gonna let her sister be one of them.





	neon bruises

**Author's Note:**

> If you're clicking on this for the first time, I'd recommend checking out rust and mahogany, the first story in this series, first. It's possible to read this without that context but it's better with it. 
> 
> Lup and Taako use the fuck word like punctuation, so be aware of that, I guess! 
> 
> There's an implication of disordered eating in this chapter. I haven't pinned down exactly how I want to write that, and whether I think Taako has something you could call a full-blown eating disorder, but his relationship with food is definitely at least a little fucked. 
> 
> Also, the past decade of Barry's life/unlife involved a whole lot of dissociation, and that's discussed briefly at the end of the chapter. There's hints of codependence? IDK, they're working on it.
> 
> Generally speaking, if I touch on something that matters to you and I fuck it up, I really appreciate you reaching out and telling me so so I can try and do better. These characters are dealing with a lot of shit I've never dealt with myself, and while I'm doing my best, I'm not always gonna get it right.
> 
> Finally, I use the term “homomesia” instead of “homophobia” (as part of a joke; there's no real homomesia in this chapter), because phobias are a real thing and “homophobia” is different than that. “-mesia” means hatred, so it's more accurate anyway. :)

“Okay, what the _fuck_ was that?” Lup says, once they've tracked down Taako. They're on some weird forest road somewhere; fuck if she knows which. Probably she should learn Faerun's geography at some point, since they're living here permanently and all, but eh, problem for another day. “And, by the way, _rude_ , teleporting without me 'n Barry. I had to spend like, a fourth level spell slot finding you.”

“You're both liches; what the fuck does it matter?” Taako says. He's not looking at her. _Godsdammit_ , he's not looking at her.

“Mmkay, someone's pissy, got it.” Lup says. “Seriously, bro, what's up?”

“What's up? What the fuck do you think, Lup? I fucking forgot you! And there she is pretending like that's fucking, forgivable or some shit! Like she has any right to, to,”

“Walk around a corner in her own moon base?” Barry says. “Uh, I mean, not to disagree with your central thesis or anything. Totally, uh, totally with you on that front.”

“I told her to stay the fuck away! Avi shoulda fucking told her! How the fuck does something that simple not get through her fucking head!”

“Yeah, that was fucked. Dunno if it was that Avi guy or Luce, but they should have communicated way fucking better.” Lup says. “You're absolutely fucking right, babe.”

Taako just. Stops, mid-rant, and Lup has no fucking clue how to react to that.

This whole, argument, yelling sesh, whatever – it's like, a half-step _wrong._ Lup _knows_ Taako, knows when he's bullshitting and how sharp his eyes go when he's really, actually angry, knows how to defuse and how to go with him and –

and she doesn't, though. Because she was _stuck in a fucking umbrella_ for ten years, and everyone she loves has changed and Lup _hasn't_ , and Taako is just staring at her, and Lup has no fucking clue what in all the hells she did wrong.

Finally he mutters, “Yeah I fucking _am_. Yeah.” But it's not icy whip of Taako's anger. He's _got_ to still be angry, he can't have changed _that_ much, but if he is he's not fuckin' showing it.

After that the silence gets awkward real fuckin' quickly. Barry, bless him, interrupts it. “Well!” he smiles, with that lopsided smile on his face that still makes her magic lich heart flutter, gods help her, “Let's, uh, let's find an inn?”

\---

“Well, cha'boy's pre-tty pooped, I'ma turn in early, but uh, good night my dudes,” Taako says, stretching.

“You don't want to eat dinner? Cook? _Anything_?” Lup says, incredulous. She has the vague impression, from the umbrella, that Taako spends a lot less time in the kitchen than he used to, but they haven't eaten since lunch, and it's been a pretty fuckin' stressful few hours.

“Nope, I'm – I'm good out here, thanks.” He grabs one of the keys, and slams the door to his room.

Lup and Barry exchange a look. “Fantasy takeout?” Barry ventures, finally. “We could talk about some rituals I've been working on. There's a surprising amount of free time, being a disembodied lich. Oh! And this world's got some pretty good romances, if you're looking to get caught up with the local entertainment.”

“Sounds good,” Lup says, and turns away from the locked door.

\---

It's five in the morning and Lup has been stewing for _hours_. Barry can't sleep without her in the room right now, or else she'd go pace around outside, maybe see if she could find something to blow up. Not being able to sleep or cuddle with your soft, chubby husband or even fuckin' _trance_ because you're a construct of pure magic _sucks_.

She keeps on circling back to the thing with Taako. Before, he might _say_ he wanted to be alone but like, it was _Taako_ , that wasn't _legit_ or anything – at least not for Lup.

But there wasn't any way of mistaking that shit. Taako definitely, definitely slammed a door in her face, and Lup can't stop thinking about it, and she can't do anything about it, and she was done with this whole boredom bullshit approximately twelve _thousand_ years ago, she's had _enough_.

Five in the morning … Barry went to bed at midnight, so that's five hours of sleep. That's enough sleep for a human, right? That's probably enough.

“Hey babe? Babe, get up, we're making some fucking food.” She says.

“Wha?” Barry says, sleepily, rubbing his eyes. It's really fucking cute. Lup wants to kiss him _so bad_.

But she can't, and that's not the point right now. “The whole thing with Taako last night was really fuckin' weird so I'm gonna make a huuuge fuckin' breakfast to make 'im talk but,” she does jazz hands, and the necromatic energy making up her hands at the moment sparkles and kinda blurs together, “no hands, so you're my sous cook, try not to fuck it up okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Barry says softly. “I'll try.”

He sounds hurt. Lup winces. “Oh, babe,” Lup stops hovering, wraps around him as much as she can, kind of phases into the bed in the process. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. You won't fuck it up. You're a wonderful sous cook, my second favorite in the whole plane – in every plane.”

“Flatterer,” Barry says, but he's smiling, and they're alright again, and _gods_ she loves him, she loves him so much. He gets up and puts on his non-sleep jeans, and a horrific neon t-shirt advertising some kinda fantasy science fair, or something, the atrocious fonts make it really hard to tell. “Okay, let's go, what are we making?”

“Uh, do you even need to _ask_? Fantasy french toast, of course, and scrambled eggs – the special recipe, y'know, from cycle 22 I think? Bacon, and just for kicks let's throw in some fuckin' danishes, it's early enough to manage em – and, let's see, we _gotta_ have pancakes.”

Barry squints at her dubiously for a second, then smiles. “Alright, let's fucking do this,” he says.

Lup loves him _so. Much._

\---

The inn's kitchen isn't really set up for this kind of massive production. It's some tiny, podunk town in the middle of the forest, the first one they came to. But Lup is the second-best chef in this entire planar system, and also an extremely powerful lich who can cast Mage Hand, and Barry is really good at following instructions, so they manage.

At 9 am, Barry is just taking the danishes out of the oven, and Taako walks in.

“What the fuck is this?” Taako says, ears startled, straight up.

“We made breakfast,” Barry says cheerfully. “C'mon, sit down!” There's a few other people, but they're keeping their distance. Must be the, y'know, interplanar, literally universal fame. Or the lich thing. There's a lot of options, here.

Taako like, slinks over to the table. He keeps on looking around, like maybe the food's gonna disappear, like maybe he wants it to, and it's fucking weird. He slowly takes tiny portions of everything they made, slowly cuts a single bite of fantasy french toast, chews it. Slowly.

Barry's staring at him, which is an unnerving experience at best. Merle is the only person that Lup has ever known who was able to completely ignore one of Barry J Bluejean's stares, but Taako's making a valiant effort at it.

He eats two more bites, and then says, “Listen, this is great, best fuckin' food I've had in, uh, twelve years, but, uh, cha'boy's not, not really hungry r-n? So I'm gonna goooo.”

Lup can't even _speak,_ what the _fuck_ , so luckily she has the most perfect husband in every possible plane.

“You absolutely are not,” Barry says, “What the fuck, Taako, I almost burned myself like, ten times and you've taken exactly three bites, where are you even planning to _go_?”

“Neverwinter,” Taako says, not sitting down. “I – Listen, this is like, the best marketing opportunity there has ever been, _everyone_ knows this face,” he gestures at his face, “it's like, the perfect opportunity to launch Taako's School of Magic! This has been chill and all, hanging out in inns, but I'm ready to like, _make something_ of myself _._ Been like four days. Gotta capitalize on this shit while it's hot.”

“Yeah, and it's also the perfect opportunity to _eat the fucking breakfast that we cooked specifically for you_ , Ko,” Lup says. She was angry at the Hunger, but that was an old anger, rooted deep. This is different. It feels fucking _good_ , to feel like this, intense, unmuffled. To yell at her dumbass baby brother. “You can't capitalize on anything if you're fucking dead because you haven't eaten a real meal in a week!”

Taako visibly bites back a retort. After a tense second, he spits, “Okay, fuck, fine! I'll eat your stupid breakfast.”

Taako sits back down, but he doesn't look happy. She wanted this, but not like this. He should _say_ something, yell at her, anything, but he just picks at his food, eats in tiny bites. The silence is stretched and tense.

Finally, he says, “It's really good. Are these the eggs from cycle 24?”

“Think it was cycle 22, babe.” Lup says, but her heart's not in it. When he gets up the second time, a few minutes later, she lets him go.

\---

They clean up the kitchen with a few spells, and leave the rest of the food for the inn's patrons. All the fuckin' delicious food they made is probably adequate payment for the ingredients they used, it's obviously way better than anything anyone here could come up with, so Lup doesn't bother to leave any GPs when they retreat to their room

“Well that was weird as shit.”

“Right?!” Lup says, somewhere between pissed and sad. Okay, more sad, but pissed is easier so she's leaning into it.

“Gods, I fucking _hate_ this. I hate all the time we lost. You all, you went through this horrible thing, my most important people, and I was _trapped_ and now I'm back but I can't get that time back, y'know? Taako isn't talking to us and I don't know when that happened, we've been together our whole entire lives but I _don't know when that happened_ , Barry! Who I am and, and who I want to be, and everything I was – I was trying to get to, it's all fucking. Gone. Vored by a fucking umbrella,” Lup says.

“Lup, babe, it – it'll be okay, trust me, alright? Taako isn't gonna shut you out forever. He's just, just dealing in his own weird-ass Taako way. He's had a long time without us. Without, y'know, friends, I think, before he met up with Merle and Magnus.” Barry says. “And Lup, when you're memory-less, it's – I was a different person, y'know? Every time it was like, all these fundamental things that make me, _me_ , they weren't there, and it was – unbearable.”

Lup goes for the obligatory goof with a choked laugh. “UnBarryable.” He shoots finger guns at her, and Lup can't even deal with how much she loves this absolute dork.

“But – yeah, I mean, it definitely fucking sucks.” Barry says. “Not gonna, uh, sugarcoat that pile of shit or anything. Taako's shutting us out and that is, in my scientific opinion, suuuuper bad. But we're _us_ , babe. We got a fucking _manticore_ to spill that one time. It – it's gonna work out, Lup. I promise. You're his sister, and he loves you, he's just got to deal with his own shit for a while. He'll come back. You know he will.”

“Gods, I fucking love you.” Lup says. “I - thanks. It's really fucking good to be with you again, babe, to like, talk about this shit and not have to just – push myself through the logic blocks and the cotton and the stupid fucking red velvet I won't, I _won't ever touch that shit again_ – ”

“Babe! Love, you're sparking, shh, shh. I'm here, Lup. I'm here, and I love you so much, gods I wish I could touch you but I'm here, we're here together,” and a blue mage hand is stroking her hair and Lup shudders and takes deep breaths, pulls herself back to her core. _Taako. Barry._ She loves them. She loves them, and she is _here_ , she is not trapped, the umbra staff is broken, she is _not trapped_.

“Thanks,” she says, finally. And they're quiet, for awhile.

Barry's eyes slowly slide out of focus. He's looking at the ceiling when he says, “Y'know, it's funny, I still – I still don't remember a lot of the last ten years, myself. I, I mean, obviously it's not the Voidfish at this point, but my – I switched bodies so many times it's just all blurred together, I guess?”

Lup makes a noise, heartsick. “Oh, babe,” she says, and uses Mage Hand to squeeze his hand, and it's not enough but it's something.

“I'm not even, not even really angry, I guess, I'm just – I'm here, with you, and that's all the room there even is, in my head, that's the biggest possible feeling in any world.”

“You sap!” Lup modifies Mage Hand into Mage Hug, which is better, but still definitely not enough, and she'd definitely be crying at least a little if she had a real body™, and she even misses _that_ , what the fuck.

After a minute, she says, “Bear, you realize that's not like, the healthiest, though? Like that's not... I'm not your everything, that's how the whole healthy-relationship thing works. Multiple anchors, yo.”

“I wouldn't, I don't want to put everything on you, but Lup, I, I didn't _have them_ , Lucretia was, was on the moon behind an anti-lich ward and Magnus didn't remember, and then he thought I was the enemy, and – ” Barry's breath hitches, “ – I, I worked really hard to hold onto the memories of all of us, to hold onto the hope that somehow, somehow you'd come back and we'd defeat the Hunger and, and we _did it,_ we _won_ , and, I just – I don't have the space in my head for anything else. You're back, and that's _everything_ , Lup.”

What does Lup even _say_ to that? Her husband is hurting and tangled up and _needs her_ and all she can do is Mage Hug a little harder, rub circles into his back with a spectral hand.

“I'm scared, Bear,” Lup admits. “You're hurt and, and what if Taako never lets me back in?”

“He will.” He sounds so _sure._

“What about _you_?” Lup says, half-believing him, half not.

“I've got you.” Barry says, smile full of trust. “Of _course_ I'm gonna be okay.”

Lup really almost chokes on a sob, despite the fact that her body literally can't do that. “I love you _so much,_ Bear. What'd I ever do to deserve this?”

“I dunno, but I'm really fucking glad you did it, whatever it was.”

Fucking _why_ is she a fucking lich? “This is homomesia,” Lup complains, “Fuckin' universe preventing me from hugging my _fucking husband_.” He chuckles, a little wetly, and doesn't say anything.

The silence is comfortable. Barry just radiates emotion when he's quiet – he can fucking _clear a room_ with the potency of his awkward silence when he tries – but right now, he's radiating love, and Lup wraps herself in it and basks. Everything is shitty, but she's here with Barry, and _he's_ not.

“God, we're... we've got a long way to go, haven't we, Bear?”

“We'll get there, Lup. Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to just post things as i finish them and lemme tell you, this definitely should not have gotten done as fast as it did, and i'm very tired, so uh, if this isn't quite as polished as the previous work, that's why. may make minor edits tomorrow but i have got to get this out of my head. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed! i will love you forever if you leave kudos or comments :)


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